Joelysa Pankanea (Canada)

Bicycle Thieves

Composer and musical director Joelysa Pankanea guides a group of six musicians and four actors as they provide live musical and voice accompaniment to the landmark neorealist film Bicycle Thieves. The project is a special commission from PuSh to Pankanea; when asked to choose a film to pay this special kind of tribute to, she chose Vittorio De Sica’s masterpiece, which tells the story of an impoverished man, his son and their search for a stolen bicycle amid the chaos of post-WWII Rome. The score and voice work add vibrancy and a greater sense of urgency to De Sica’s black-and-white images, making his work all the more affecting.

Pankanea’s music is deceptively, stealthily simple; its repetitions become haunting; its big deep chords sink into you. —The Georgia Straight

The film is projected with no sound. Onstage, the four actors—Marco Soriano, Stefano Guilianetti, Susan Bertoia, and Sal Sortino—provide live voiceovers in Italian while Mark Haney (bass), Martin Fisk (percussion), Molly MacKinnon (violin), Marina Hasselberg (cello), Emily Jane King (piano, keyboard) and Michael Simpsonelli (mandolin, guitar, percussion) bring Pankanea’s haunting score to life. Prepare to be moved and enthralled.